The highlight of the morning for me (besides breakfast) is the daily fourth hour chapel service held in the main auditorium. Since I’ve been here, I’ve gotten to hear and meet Pastor Chappell and Dr. Goetsch, Dr. David Gibbs Jr. and Dr. R.B. Ouellette! I’m pretty sure we have Dr. Gibbs III, Paul Schwanke and a several other great preachers coming within the month. In my entire life, I don’t think I’ve ever heard so much great preaching all of the time!

Chapel is like a fun daily church service; we always give the preachers a standing ovation when they walk onto the platform (in the Sunday evening service, the men of the choir and orchestra all say Amen when they walk onto the platform, it’s pretty funny), then Bro. Wall usually leads us in a couple verses of a nice up-tempo song to get us moving. If you’re going to come here, listen to announcements carefully, they usually announce important things over and over throughout the week, so it’s your fault if you get demerits for missing an important meeting. So far, the tour groups have been singing their summer tour songs right before the speaker begins, it’s a great way to prepare just the right sprit for the sermon.

This morning, Dr. Goetsch gave a speech about September 11, reminding us not only of the details of that horrible day since we were all either pre-teens or in ourearly teens in 2001, but also encouraging us to never forget, and never allow anyone to strip today of its meaning for us. If I can, I’ll get the audio and post it for you, itwas honestly one of the most sobering speeches I’ve ever heard.

The audio from some recent chapel messages is posted here, and if you’re interested, it would probably be good to check back often.